H6 FORESTRY IN 



all exploitation beyond that of depasturing such portion 

 as was adapted for this, to the prevention of that mode of 

 carrying out fellings in the localisation and practical 

 execution of which the students would have found profit- 

 able instruction. Still there were some advantages 

 accruing to the school from having possession of these 

 properties advantages the loss of which was painfully 

 felt when the park of the Casita de Arriba, which had 

 been at first placed at the service of the school, was 

 afterwards withdrawn, and had been for some months under 

 the administration of the Royal patrimony, which at the 

 end of the year freely disposed of the improvements which 

 they found carried out in it. 



The Casita de Arriba is a mansion surrounded with 

 umbrageous grounds, situated little more than half a mile 

 from the school. It was erected in 1772 by the Infanta 

 D. Gabriel, and was granted to the authorities of the 

 school to supply the place of the campo forestal, or arbore- 

 tum, at Villaviciosa. The grounds were of such extent as 

 to afford facilities for the students being exercised in the 

 sowing and planting of trees, and being made acquainted 

 with the operations and requirements of sylviculture. But 

 the shortness of the time in which it was so used, from 1870 

 to 1876, did not allow of a great deal being done in the 

 development of it as a exercise field, and when embodied 

 in the Royal patrimony the authorities of the school ceased 

 to have the administration and use of it in forest manage- 

 ment ; and the privation was felt by them. But there are a 

 number of trees growing in the entrance court of the 

 school ; and in a neighbouring street is a campo forested in 

 which the students are exercised in nursery work, but 

 this is limited in extent, and the school was reduced in 

 this respect to a condition not greatly dissimilar to that 

 under which it had been placed at Villaviciosa; but it 

 was not worse. The students still had access to the 

 celebrated pine forests of Valsain, though these were at a 

 distance, and thither they could be taken in spring, on 

 excursions of observation, and exercised, if it were desired, in 

 operations of practical forestry. 



